Cologne (TRTC)
Cologne is the former leader of the Chinese Amazons and the great-grandmother of Shampoo. Background Cologne had one goal: to become the strongest. To become not just an Elder, but the greatest among them. By thirteen, she had nearly completed her tutelage under her grandmother. At the age of eighteen, she was a living hero of the Taiping War, with an ever greater mastery of the martial arts. The only thing she lacked was land. Sadly during her time at war her mother died of a sleeping sickness and her sister took the Elder title for herself. Who as a power play sent her to learn the secret techniques her father. It was here that she met Happosai. Despite herself Cologne grew to secretly loved Happosai despite his shortness, thievery, and unpopularity among the Amazons. Sadly Happosai's two timing ways ended up breaking the Amazon girl's heart causing her to attempt to marry him off to her best friend. Eventually Happosai left the village with Cologne's stolen family heirloom, the Nanban mirror. Cologne became a lot more ruthless after this she killed her grandmother, who stood in her way… she killed her sister, who opposed her. Cologne accompanied Shampoo when she returned to Japan, opening the Cat Café in Furinkan. Cologne calls Ranma Saotome "bride-groom" and "future/son-in-law," and though she tries to trick and scheme to get Ranma to marry Shampoo at first (as well as at a couple of opportunities that fall into her lap), most of the time she is there as an aside, seeming to find joy in just watching the madness. She is a grand master of martial arts, and occasionally teaches Ranma new techniques, sometimes doing the same for his rivals. She gets around by pogoing on a gnarled wooden staff that she sometimes uses as a weapon. Style Cologne is the most powerful martial artist in the series. From the very beginning, she had been raised with the expectation that she would become an Elder on the Council. No other child her age had anything near her level of skill. None could match her intuitive understanding of the Art. By eleven, she had learned all her mother's techniques. By thirteen, she had nearly completed her tutelage under her grandmother. At the age of eighteen, she was a living hero of the Taiping War, with an ever greater mastery of the martial arts. Cologne’s style is amalgamation of traditional Xingyiquan or Baguazhang based on local styles predating Dong Haichuan and updated several times in the intervening centuries by incorporating various movements from various other styles such as Xinyi Hunyuan Taijiquan and Zuo-You Shuang Shou. It’s stance is practiced and casual, with one arm up, and palm up, and one arm down, and palm down. The style revolves around the Taoist philosophy she learned from her father. Ho trained her to transcend the limitations of the human form and human existence and experience Enlightenment through her fists. Enlightenment is control of the cycle of death and rebirth. It is control over the human form. It is the awakening of the mind and the joining of a greater universal consciousness. It comes not from compassion and love, but from self restraint and absolute austerity. In the end she learned to draw sustenance from outside sources: to use her aura to literally take the residual life energy of things around her. While her styles circular movements can be frustrating to an opponent what really makes her a force to be reckoned with are her strikes. All martial artists learn to direct as much physical force as possible into a blow by adjusting their center of gravity and controlling the movement of their body, and Cologne knows how to take it a step further, directing the ki generated by her body in any given instant into her hand. It makes for a devastating blow, sending shocks of twisting force into the nerves and disrupting opponents localized ki. It seems to be some mutation of normal Fa-jing or Chan Si-jing. The explosive force or "issuing power" of Cologne's blows, even when striking within a very short distance, is a result of her using her whole body to project force instead of relying on just her arms and legs. Even when she blocked or deflected an attack, there is an element of counter-force she applies her mastery over the release and projection of physical forces created by the body, coupled with the "silk reeling force" of her Chan Si-jing (the circular and spiral forces) basically turned her entire body into a dynamo as she redirects the force in a circular path through her body and back into her opponent. This is the key to her hand to hand fighting style. It makes her almost unbeatable in close quarters. Even armor is useless against her. The strength of her style is in the point of contact, and the required moment of relaxation in her body as she redistributed the forces involved, usually down and then up, before adding the twisting force of her Chan Si-jing. In addition Cologne’s inhuman speed and agility makes is impossible to hit harder or faster than the forces can be redistributed. There is no part of her body that she cannot use as a weapon, even her hair can be used to block or parry attacks or even attack opponent itself. Cologne has mastered the ability to use her ki to manipulate the force lines of her environment. When applied to the five elemental sympathies: earth, metal, fire, wood and water it can be a devastating power. Cologne's strongest element in the Wu Xing is water, followed equally by Wood and Metal. She is not all powerful however. She is very old, and like Happosai her body has slowed its production of ki over the last half century. Her control is still exemplary, but it takes weeks of building up the charge within her body to execute more powerful techniques (since she doesn’t cheat' the process like Happosai does with his disgusting fetish). The sad truth is that she is not a young woman anymore, able to pick fights and duel with rivals for hours on end. Special Technique Battle' Aura:' Skilled martial artists are capable of producing a battle aura, which is a manifestation of the user’s ki, spirit and often his emotional state. One who has produced a battle aura is wreathed in a glowering aura, which flows around him like fire. A battle aura exerts spiritual energy and can provide protection from other spiritual phenomenon, such as ki blasts from a martial artist or possession by a ghost. Cologne’s battle aura literally bends reality to her whim. She can put out enough energy to equal a perfect shishi hokoudan, but instead of leaving her emotionally exhausted, she cycles the excess ki back into her body. The resulting battle aura can only be described as prismatic and almost solid. The easiest way to produce an aura is to link it to an emotion, such as anger or depression, but emotion-based auras are more limited in their applications. Cologne doesn’t rely on any one emotion as a crutch at all. Her aura is perfectly balanced, expressing anger and outrage and confidence and depression all at once and she uses almost a hundred percent of her mental reserves. You could probably bounce a rock off her aura, it is so thick. Dragon's Roar: This is a verbal technique specially designed to fight men. The woman’s ki is sent through the vibrations in the atmosphere, this allows her to make a link with a man's brain stimulating their pleasure centers granting her immediate control. Obeying your words is like a dose of heroin to most people. Nian Jing: The Chinese martial art technique of maintaining contact with an opponent, and using that contact to determine their posture and intentions. Also called "sticking" jing, it meant that she can read her opponent after just a moment's contact. Eight Points Rising Moon: A hold where opponent is sent into the ground face down with Cologne on top her back to opponent. She then lifts her legs vertically into the air and spins pressing opponent’s entire body into the ground corkscrewing it in place. Grinding them against the packed earth, around and around and around, that accumulated force is then used to hammer opponent even further into the unyielding ground. Splitting Cat Hairs: Cologne creates separate afterimages that spin around the opponent at varying speeds while attacking the opponent. Wood style Juryō Yōzan Ken (Wood Spirit Demon Beheading Fist): Tendrils of plant matter rise out of the ground, forming into vines that coiled around her forearms creating a sharp piercing weapon. ' ' Shimaneki Sō (Death-Inviting Grass): This is tiny tendril like roots that burrow into opponent’s flesh. The roots then destabilize and devour the victim's ki, using it to spread through their body. Left unchecked, it will then start a flowering phase. Ripping the victim's body apart as the flowers bloom leaving not even a skeleton behind. It is possible to slow the vine down by not directing any ki into the area around it. However this means going against the natural impulse the body has to try and push out or expunge the parasitic infection. Water style Fist of the Sea: Cologne creates a wall of surging water that can be used to deflect an attack. She has the ability to alter the physical state of the water, between liquid, solid and gas, at will. So not only can she solidify the wall into ice for more powerful attack. She can graph the outer surface of the water to create sharp edges for those who try to attack the wall physically. The wall can be use offensively as well by sending it crashing towards opponent. Or even forming the wall under opponent to lift them lifted into the air and send them careening into the ceiling. Deep' Ocean' Bullet: This technique extends water over a large scale, a tidal wave of water rises up, and surges forward as a high-pressure, rotating column of water. Capable of exerting a significant amount of pressure upon a solid surface, that allows the action of a drill that tears apart anything in its path. Shark Fist: Cologne is able to generate violent bursts of water by touching the surface of a body of water, using these pressurized gouts to knock her opponents flying. Dragon’s Breath Water and Metal Style Earth Sickening Water: This technique was created solely by Cologne and is said to be able to wipe out an entire village in ten minutes. To perform this technique she inflicts a wound upon herself letting her blood mix with the water around her creating a strong acid. The breakdown of food for energy in cells produces carbon dioxide. In the blood, carbon dioxide is converted into carbonic acid. The ki permeated within that blood and the water makes the acid strong enough to melt whatever it touches. The technique also poisons the air. While Earth Sickening Water is just as versatile as the original would style it is just as dangerous to the touch to Cologne as to opponent. So while the water style can be used for both offense and defense. The black water, now burning to the touch, can really only be used for offense. Dragon’s Red Tears: The Earth Sickening Water is sent into the sky and broken into small droplets and clumps to rain death down upon the enemy with greater area of effect. Red rain that dissolves everything melting it without a trace. Kaitei Kikori (Deep Sea Wood Cutter): Another technique invented by Cologne. It is the most powerful of all the elemental water techniques assimilated by the Joketsuzoku Amazons, only usable by those with an equal mastery over the Metal element. The Kaitei Kikori technique, if it landed, will cut so fast that its victim won’t even feel it. It is essentially impossible to block. There is no known material that can hold up against it for more than a few moments, and at velocities many times the speed of sound, it is nearly impossible to dodge once 'found' by the beam. Conversely, it required tremendous amounts of ki to compress and project the streams of water, much less form and collect the tiny crystalline abrasives it used. And even then, the ki saturated water needed a third step to be completely effective. The water molecules needed to be held together in a coherent jet over long distances by telekinetically forming a web of molecular columns. It is the most powerful and difficult technique anyone in the village had ever developed using that element. And since it is her own technique, she never came up with a counter to it. Five Elements Sanryoukyou (Prism): When all five elemental states are used at once, they annihilate each other and everything they make contact with. Put simply: it creates an area where molecular bonds no longer exist. Equipment Staff: The product of a decade of research and experimentation: a weapon to supplant her weakening body and expand her skill set. It took more than a year to grow the staff, and another year to get it to fully bond with its master. While not as indestructible or heavy as the legendary Nyoi-bo wielded by Sun Wukong, it was a versatile and powerful instrument. Category:The Road to Cydonia